Wednesday 27 August 2014

Transitional Empowerment

I have started to get comments and requests for advice through this blog. Many, no all, of the comments make me see the importance of what I am doing. I started to write this blog as a way of helping those transgender people that feel lost, or are doing as I did and have been searching for something to help them make sense of themselves. It also became a voice to the cis gender out there, seeing what it is we transgender go through has given a number of people the insight I hoped it would, now partially understanding how difficult our lives can be.

Today I want to speak to both sides, while giving some advice to those that have asked for it. I don't like giving direct advice, for one reason. In this, you must forge your own path. It is the nature of the hand we have been dealt. While following your own path is wise advice for the cis gender as well, for the transgender it is of utmost importance, in my opinion. No one, not even me, can tell you if transition is what you need to make you happy. You must choose that for yourself. I can't stress this enough. The last thing I want to do is somehow convince someone to go through the hurricane that is transition when they could have made themselves happy in another way, if only they, themselves, decided to choose that path. Not to mention, choosing to transition, yourself, is what keeps many of us going. It is the knowledge that I chose this, I know it is what I needed. I didn't do this for anyone else but me. When all becomes unbearable, many times that is the one thing that pulls you through. So with this in mind, I will continue.

I spent some time today reading over the things I have been writing in my journal. I have decided to share some of them, mostly unfiltered. I'm hoping it will do two things. For those who are wondering if transitioning is what they should do, I hope it shows you the vast difference between who you are now and who you can become. That may sound a little presumptions but while reading, the constant theme I seen was change resulting in happiness. Second, I hope this can show the cis gender why it is so important for those of us that need to transition to do so. 

One of the main things I realized was how much my aggression has slipped away. Before when I was pretending to be a man I was almost constantly angry. Most times my thoughts were taken up with some sort of violence. Be it revenge for slights that I felt happened, though probably didn't, or anger with the entire world for things not making sense to me. So rarely was I happy. If I wasn't angry I was depressed, turning my anger inward toward myself. Blaming myself for everything that was wrong in my life and the world around me. There were so many things that caused all of these feelings in me. I felt completely out of control. Not in the sense that I couldn't stop myself from the things I did, but that I had no say in anything including, and especially, my own life. After years and years of trying to understand myself, trying to understand what made the question "Why do I want to be a girl?" never cease, of trying to justify everything I desired so that it fit into the world I was surrounded by left me with a complete sense of hopelessness which eventually turned to anger toward everything and everyone. I don't know any specific examples, but I have no doubt whatsoever that I have thought someone was attacking me when in truth they were trying to help, that is how clouded I had become. My anger and aggression was the single emotion I had no control over, ironic that isn't it? How the lack of control led me to live nearly entirely in an emotional state I had no control over. It was also the main thing about myself that, upon reflection, I hated. I would hate the things I said in an argument, or that I caused said argument, or the actions I would take. It never felt to me that this angry person I was was the person I was supposed to be.

Now that I am a year into my transition, I didn't even notice my aggression slipping away. Of course this has a fair bit to do with replacing my testosterone with estrogen, in that it is chemical as much as it is psychological, but the result is the same. I have such peace of mind now it makes me pause every time I consciously realize it. It hasn't disappeared of course, everyone gets angry. The biggest difference is that my day to day life isn't consumed with thoughts of how to get back at someone, or how I would defend myself if certain things happened. Especially I no longer assume everyone hates me, or is trying to make my life worse, or trying to tell me how to live my life and being insulted beyond reason for it. I am far more calm. It just feels "right" it feels like I am being me, and not the monster I was.

Another thing I have come to realize is something that may be a little more difficult to explain. Many, many times in my past I had the thought, "If I was a woman people would see me for who I was." Writing it out like that and looking at it with hindsight seems like I was constantly thinking the answer I was looking for. Well, I guess I was, but I didn't see it that way. It was a form of envy, or jealously. I would think "women can say/think/do these things and people fully accept it, why can't I?" As I have said before, so many years of trying to hide this from everyone and so little information made me hide the truth from myself best of all. I assumed, and I'm fairly certain I am correct, that people seen me as arrogant or constantly angry (which I was) or thought less of everyone, thought I was a "know it all", etc. Honestly I assumed everyone seen me as just about every bad trait a person could have. I'm not sure if it is completely true, or if it was all just what I had convinced myself of because I hated myself so much. Either way, it was what I believed. 

I find now people see me with attributes I always wished they would. People see my passion instead of anger, my thirst for knowledge instead of being a braggart, my self reflection/understanding instead of arrogance. These seem to be the result of a combination of things. Probably the most important is I am being true to myself and people are able to see how genuine you are when you are indeed being genuine. Also, people have responded to the shedding of weight I have gone through, and am still going through. Every personal and emotional breakthrough I have gets reflected back at me through the reception of others. Perhaps least important is that I am being outspoken with being transgender and people have at least some small idea that it must have been difficult and see the strength I have gained through it. Which brings me to another point.

My confidence. Before I had no real confidence in myself. Yes, I thought I was good at some things, I was "confident" I was a great swimmer for example, but I had no shred of confidence in the person I was. I could not, at all, see myself as a whole person, or barely a person at all. I would think, and say often, that I must be from another planet or some such foolishness because I had nothing in common with anyone, I had no footing to gain purchase on the person I was. I was as lost in my person as someone living in an illusion. To me, there seemed nothing about myself that could be used to make a whole person, a person of any worth. I was as at odds with myself as one could imagine, never understanding who I was or who I was meant to, or could have been.

These days, people comment on my confidence often. There is no secret to it. I have searched myself far and wide, over years and years, to find who I am. I came to this understanding after as much inner reflection as is possibly reasonable. Something every single transgender person is forced to do. There is no way around it, no short cut. You have to deal with every bit of doubt, everything about you that doesn't make sense, because nothing, or little, about you seems "right". You question yourself endlessly. You question desires, emotions and thoughts. Not just "were they the right thing at the time" but "why do I have these thoughts?". Not only do you question these things, but you question things about yourself that no cis person would ever imagine doing. You question (in my case) why do I have a penis? Yes, that's right. I was born "male" according to some people, but I often questioned why I had a penis, having one making that little sense to me. I questioned if I would feel better with breasts, if I would feel better being called "miss" rather than "sir".

It is my experience that this confidence is something everyone in my life, and in the life of any transgender person who is going through or gone through transition can feel radiate from me and them. It is something I would always see in the past when looking at other transgender women. I would see the strength in them that I could not place, or see in anyone else. And that is something else that seems to be true in all of this. If there is one thing that being transgender and transitioning has given me is a confidence only people with those two traits can possibly have. No cis person has this confidence, they have never been forced to face themselves in such a manner.  The transgender person has to face questions that, not only are we the only sort of people that face them, we are ourselves, the only one with any answers to give our self. Everyone can face adversity in the outside world, but when you face it within you, and subsequently overcome it, the reward of confidence is unparalleled. 

There are two other things that I have gain from transition, and I would imagine any other transitioning transgender person would also gain. That is perseverance and self-reflection. These two things have been forced upon me, they have become tools of my survival and now that I am transitioning have become tools I can use to launch myself forward in both life and who I am as a person. As unforgiving as it is to the mind, being transgender is a harsh, but effective teacher of what is important. It forces you to learn everything about yourself that you can possibly learn, and at the same time it forces you to keep on going no matter how impossible something may seem. To the majority of people, the desire to want to be the "opposite" gender seems like something from an exercise in thought rather then a desire in reality. Yet there are many of us that live that reality daily. That this thing that seems impossible is the very thing we want... not just want but need in order to live our lives as happy, confident, flourishing human beings. We all see this impossible goal and say "Yes, I can do this.". I feel justified in saying a transgender person is the strongest person anyone can ever meet.

Wednesday 20 August 2014

Getting My Fill

Wednesday of last week my night was rather mundane. I think I played some playstation and got a shower before going to bed, nothing special. I wasn't in a bad mood, or depressed, but neither was I in a particularly great mood either. Shortly after going to bed I fell asleep.

At one point I woke up, it wasn't from a sound, or needing to use the bathroom, I just opened my eyes. Suddenly I was feeling awful, I was thinking every sort of bad thought about my transition. Everything from doubting if I'm doing the right thing to not transitioning well enough to make me feel right, the things that I can't do in any foreseeable future to help my transition, for whatever reason, money and time being the main ones. I even started to get frustrated with how much effort I put into this daily. Things like plucking my entire torso every few days and having to shave and put on makeup every. single. day. Before I can look at myself in the mirror without wanting to tear my face off. My mind racing with these ideas until the last one.

I should kill myself and rid myself of the impossibility of what I am trying to do. To finally be free from the constant pressure and endless questioning and doubt.

I thought that and got upset with myself, how is it possible I'm back here again? Suicide is something I haven't thought of in quite some time, it feels like. Then I realized how the idea of it made me feel. It honestly made me feel good. Finally I would be finished with this endless fight. It was like making a hard choice that you've been putting off for far too long. Luckily I guess I was more devastated with the idea that I was thinking like that again than I was convinced I just made the final right choice to commit suicide because it felt so good to finally make that decision.

I remember one day, several years ago, after having a talk with my brother he said something to me like, "You just want to find a way to stop thinking." I laughed and agreed with him. That is what the decision for suicide was for, to just stop thinking. Did the idea of that ever sound relaxing.

I spent the rest of the day wondering why it felt so good. And I must admit, I did question, does it feel so "right" because it is? I've often said to myself, when I finally commit suicide I'll do it realizing I was meant to do it years ago.

 It took some time but I realized where the idea of suicide was coming from, if not the reason for the feeling. I hadn't felt any validation in what seemed to be some time now. I haven't been out with anyone for several weeks that is new to my life and knows only "Rebecca". Or even going out with my ex and doing something "girly" or feminine for lack of better words. Talking to my therapist, as well. Days like those give me validation. It makes me feel like a woman. Having days that I get validation fills me with confidence. Think of it like a cup of water with a slow leak. Over the days the water in that cup will go down to empty. I can keep that from happening by adding some every day, or adding a fair bit from time to time. Well, I was out of water.

I went home a little early. I spent some time before hand trying to decide if I should or not. It was when I finally decided that instead of getting off work early, going home and doing nothing which would probably fix nothing, I went home and got ready to go out. I went to a bar in fact. I decided while still at work that someone was going to kiss me that night, and someone did. I sat at the bar and had a drink. After looking around for a while I started to think I was going to leave. It seemed like nothing but couples there and/or people I wasn't interested in. Before I finished my drink I seen one guy step up to the bar almost straight across from me. He was good looking, tall, wide chest, dressed in a suit. I said to myself.

"This guy is buying me a drink."

I caught his eye and held his gaze for a bit before looking away. I would look around for a while and lock eyes with him again. After he finished his drink he called the bartender over. She turned around and looked at me, then back at him. She made him a drink then walked over to me.

"That guy just bought you a drink, so what do you want?"

"Not fucking bad.", I thought to myself, lmao.

Anyway, I ended up going over and talking to him and his friend. They both flirted with me, giving me wonderful compliments like "I'm the most classy woman in the bar right now." They wanted to take me home for a threesome, which, I'm sorry, but I'm taking that as a compliment these days. Before I left I was being kissed by the guy who bought me the drink. It was nice kissing him, it was nice to lay my hand on his chest, feel how solid it was, how much bigger he was.

Needless to say it was a bunch of new feelings for me.

The next day I was... holy fuck was I in a good mood. Not only did I have several new experiences, it was very validating for me, it gave me confidence too. I guess I know it isn't real. As my ex pointed out to me, this sort of validation is shallow. She's right, but it sure is invigorating. It is like a drug of sort, you get one hell of a high, but it doesn't last forever, and the crash usually sucks.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed every second of that thursday night and the next few days afterward while I rode the high. There is a lesson to be learned in every situation and I learned a lot that entire day. I know I can sense when my self confidence starts to run out, and that confidence is what I need to battle the never ending self-doubt. I know the sexual advances and compliments from men make me feel great. I know when I'm feeling awful, I can do something about it that will at least work for the time being. From that, I know what I need to work toward. Making sure my cup never goes empty, ultimately finding a way that makes sure that cup never goes empty but does it with something more real, more stable.

Well, I have a lot I was going to write on but it is getting late, I'll get to them eventually.

Tuesday 12 August 2014

Soul Asylum

As I have mentioned my one year anniversary has left me reflecting on my life in deep thought. Even though trying to figure out who I am, what gender I am, my orientation, etc. has been on my mind all of my life I never could have imagined being where I am now.

I've recently realized I have made a mistake in my thinking. I have always associated my desire to be a woman with sexual desire. It was something I would always fantasize about, with growing intensity as the years passed. My mistake is not seeing how much it was in my life, how it truly was on all levels. My sexual fantasy was just the most powerful. Sexual desire being as all consuming as it is, it was how I would try to let my gender confusion out to the occasional person. I attached myself to the transvestite/bdsm world in order to make sense of it to myself. However the stigma of "men that want to be girls" kept me ashamed for a long, long time.

I had all but forgotten how much of my entire life these thoughts were in. I would regularly wonder what it would be like to do anything, on a long list of random things, as a woman. Walking down the street, getting my hair cut, being friends with other women, going to school, buying clothes. It was something that never left my mind. Seeing this lately has given me the strongly sought after, if not dangerous to need, validation from my past of being transgender. My personal quest to understand everything on an intellectual level has gotten in the way of seeing how I have always tried to make sense of my confusion on an intellectual level in the past. I didn't just attempt to rationalize out my female sexual fantasies, I was trying to rationalize it out in all aspects of my life. I see too, now, how I am trying to do the impossible. I'm trying to place concrete thought and reasoning to pure feeling and emotion. Something I need to learn, or perhaps re-learn, is how to not do this anymore. That I need to just let some feelings and desires happen and stop looking for a reason or permission.

This has opened up another world of thought for me however, yet something else I realize I need to break down. I have slowly come to terms with the fact that I have never thought or felt like a man, neither have I ever thought or felt like a cis person, man or woman. I have convinced myself that seeing both sides of the gender spectrum has given me some clarity that most others will not be able to have. In reality though, I know nothing about not being a transgender woman. How could I? How can I assume I know what a cis man or woman is thinking or feeling when I have never been either of those things, never? My thoughts have always been plagued with my gender dysphoria, never, or rarely, being clear enough to think like the rest of the 99% of the population.

Also, I've started to see how completely alone I have been through this in the past. I have spoken with a few people that have had the empathy enough to ask me, "So who knew when you were younger? Did you have any support?" The answer to that is no one knew, I had no support. It was the look on one woman's face in particular upon hearing my answer that made me see the reality of it. Honestly, I have thought fairly little about how much I have had to deal with this on my own. When I wasn't telling myself it is a dark secret that know one could know about, I was telling myself it is something I had to deal with on my own anyway, telling someone wouldn't help. It is dealing with it on my own that has created all of the walls I now have to climb over.

As a side note, making sure other young transgender people don't struggle through this alone is exactly why we need more transgender awareness and education. Both to give the transgender person someone to talk to, something to learn about themselves with and to rid the world of the stigma transgender people have.

Because I have done so much to myself, convinced myself of so many things that are not true about myself, I find it very hard to trust my own thoughts. I have spoken with my therapist about this and she brought up a good point. I tend to have trouble trusting my positive thoughts only, the negative thoughts are readily absorbed. This is a combination of my self worth and general confusion from my life long battle with being transgender. I feel I have gotten to the point that I need to stop analyzing the results of my internal analysis. I need to start letting things go. I am happier now, almost all of the time. I need to tell myself, I need to actually believe, that I can trust my own feelings and thoughts again. That the person I am showing to the world and myself is the real me now. I'm not doing things to hide, I'm doing things to free myself. My feelings over them are genuine. It is a testament to how difficult life becomes as a transgender person that their own feelings and thoughts get questioned so strongly, and harshly, by their selves... my self.

Again, this is something that sounds bad, maybe even like I'm complaining, but it is not the case. seeing these things as the truth they are is freeing me from the confusion they held over me. I am a truth seeker, plain and simple. I have always been, about everything, most deeply about myself. Every bit of truth I find, or barrier toward truth I break though gives me more understanding and ultimately happiness and love of myself. Often the initial realization of such deep emotional struggle leaves me hurt, I see how much of my life I have wasted hiding the truth from myself. Eventually however, this pain turns to strength. I see the true me, the transgender woman who managed to live through an inner war that less then 1% of the population has managed to live through. I may not have the complete binary perspective package I thought I did, but I do have a perspective that is obviously very different then most. Like practically all people that have been through trauma and eventually grew to live with it I too will eventually grow to accept this and be that much stronger and confident for it, each slice of my life truth that I see taking me further along that path.

Where I am now is a transwoman, courageously out to the world with nothing ot hide anymore. The secret I have kept viciously guarded from everyone is now openly presented for all to see. Not just see either, I welcome, I encourage questions, or for people to spend time with me. As each day passes I am becoming confident in myself, in my place in life, my worth to the world. I have a lot of confusion left but none of it as consuming and relentless as the beginning question of "Am I transgender?". I am happier now. I am able to see now how much peace of mind my transition is giving me. How calm my inner.... soul for lack of better words, has become.

Tuesday 5 August 2014

Integration

I have lived just about a full year now presenting female to the world, and myself,  24/7. My life is fairly routine so I haven't had much opportunity to have a lot of different experiences. It is something I consciously am aware of and try to do at least once every couple of weeks. Go out somewhere I haven't been before, or meet people I haven't met before. Just to see what it is like to go through these experiences as the woman I am meant to be. What I am finding however is the difference between mundane things, mostly social interaction, now as a woman.

Years ago I knew a woman that had a personal cab driver. She would call him up, get a ride bringing her friends with her and when we would arrive at our destination she would just get out. A quick, "add that to my account" was exchanged and that was it. I thought it was fantastic, and have wanted the same for myself for years. I tried, in the past, to make the same sort of arrangements with cab drivers and have been flat out refused.

One day, about a month ago now, I called a cab from the grocery store. During the drive home the driver asked me if I was the one always calling for cabs from my work place and heading to the same street as I was today. I told him that was me and he quickly offered to give me his number so that I can call him directly for a ride, stating, "Now you have your own personal cabbie."

Just like that I ended up getting this little thing I wanted for a good while. Now, I know it isn't miraculous but it is a clear statement of how even the little things are different for men and women. On top of having a personal chauffeur, he has also been quite kind to me. He has given me breaks on ride fees for a night on the town, he has offered somewhat difficult to find food-stuffs knowing I'm a cook who loves food. He has even gotten a little pot from one customer and given it to me. All of these things would have never happened to me as a man.

There is another reason I mention this cab driver. A few weeks ago I was at a party, a rather large one. One of those parties where you know everyone but didn't get a chance to talk to them all, some of them being people you rarely talk to but see several times a week. As it was starting to wind down several of us were calling cabs. I called my own cab, and since it was my personal cab, and I was heading home rather then in the opposite direction as everyone else, I hadn't planned on taking anyone with me. As my cab driver pulled up the back seat filled before I even opened the front door. I got in anyway, and explained I had no idea we were going to be taking a full cab. My friends offered to get out and both I and the driver said no. I got my ride home and asked him to give the girls a good deal. We said our good nights and I got out of the cab and left them to their continued partying.

The next time I called this driver he mentioned that night to me. What he said stirred emotions in me I can't really recall having before. He said the three girls that were left after I got home think very highly of me. He didn't get into detail but he said he asked if they knew me, saying I was a "sweetheart" and they responded with several compliments.

I am not used to this, from many different angles. For whatever reason I feel like compliments given to others from people about me are more sincere then compliments given to me directly from those people. To hear a car full of people describe me as a "sweetheart" and "so nice" takes a serious chunk out of the old self image of the hard, bitter man I used to be. It allows the mental freedom to occasionally picture myself as a sweet, kind, thoughtful woman. An image that brings me inner peace and calm that I get from no other source. I have mentioned the concept of "emotional transition" before and it seems this true acceptance of being a woman now, of being the kind woman, among other things, that I would want to be, is a large part of that emotional transition. It has become apparent to me that I have a hard time accepting the fact that I am actually the woman I have always wanted to be.

I feel like this is something that is hard to explain to the cis-gendered. I imagine most people just are who they are, they picture themselves, exactly as they are. They may have goals they would like to achieve, gaining a house, losing weight, etc. but they ultimately have no reason to feel like they are something they are not, or that they have to convince themselves they are something that they are. That's the tricky part. For so many years now just about every source in my life has told me I am a man, even my own eyes. There has been one voice of opposition, my own feelings, and while it seems it is undeniable, it is something that is difficult to override when you are the kind of person that lets logic defeat emotion 90% of the time. It seems, this is my current battle. The accepting, the... amalgamation of my feminine emotions and desires with my inner dialog and daily self image. You would think this is something that would be fairly simple, but it would seem that after so many years of hiding who I am and wanted to be, it has made myself the most difficult person to convince that this is my life now.

Something else that the talk between friends and cab driver has done is make me again see my lack of self worth. For the majority of my life I have always felt like no one talks about me when I'm not around. I have thought this way for one reason, I am simply not that important or interesting enough for people to consider after I have left their presence. "Out of sight, out of mind." in the truest sense. To be told people were talking about me, and in such a pleasant way, feels out of place for me. Imagine, people finding me a topic of conversation? Why? Honestly, the idea baffles me so much that I find myself wondering if maybe the cab driver made that little story up for some reason. That not a single word was said about me. That makes far more sense to me then thinking people actually like me enough to talk about me to each other.

In a somewhat related matter. I find myself doing things I would not have done before in the past. Now that I'm out as transgender, now that I'm striving for this one thing I want more then anything else and I am letting nothing get in my way, including everything else that is important to me I find myself less inclined to not speak my mind. My reasons resting in two places. Now that "everyone" knows my ultimate secret, why should I be concerned with all of the little things I  think, especially the things I think about myself. Why be afraid, or embarrassed really, to tell people I think I'm intelligent, or that I am capable of anything I put my mind to? Any of that is nothing compared to what I have already told people. The other reason being I see the wisdom and importance of not being afraid to go after what you want. There is nothing but pure truth and wisdom in the words, "First, learn how to make yourself happy."

I had a conversation with my employer a while ago about my place in the business. I had two actually. The first I defaulted to my usual guarded self, being non-committal, not saying much about myself, my goals, ambitions or abilities. That meeting left me feeling unfulfilled. Honestly, in the past I would have blamed that on my employer not me. This time however, I seen the truth, that I did it to myself. How could anyone want to put any resources into an employee whose personal opinions and agenda have nothing to do with the company? So I asked for a second talk and I spoke to her like I speak here. I was unapologetic about the opinion I have of myself, where I am going in life, my potential and my goals. Something I would never had done in the past. This time the conversation went well, and I will leave it at that.

I wonder if it is easy to see how each of these things all come together to create a whole. Being treated differently as a woman then I was a man, learning of people talking about me showing me how low my self-worth is, the acceptance of the woman I have become and doing things I wouldn't normally do. They are all a result of my transition. The good and the bad coming to light now that the curtains are raised. Now that I am expressing myself as the woman I want, it is giving me permission to express myself in other ways that I want. There is more then the self confidence that came out with talking to my employer, I also express my happiness more readily, I have learned to let stress go, etc. I see the holes that my self worth has punched into my character and they are slowly (very slowly) beginning to mend themselves. Things happening to me now feel real, more genuine, because they are happening to the me that has always stayed hidden in the past. My transition, being myself, has let all of these things happen, they are showing me the person I am. It is taking time, but being true to myself, honest with my feelings, and honest with others is creating a me that I feel like I can begin to love. That is a feeling I have never had before.